will, spend not so much time, bestow not so many hours daily, orderly, and constantly, for the increase of learning and knowledge, as doth the Queen's Majesty herself. Yea I believe, that beside her perfect readiness in Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish, she readeth here now at Windsor more Greek every day than some prebendary of this church doth read Latin in a whole week. And that which is most praiseworthy of all, within the walls of her privy chamber, she hath obtained that excellency of learning to understand, speak, and write both wittily with head and fair with hand, as scarce one or two rare wits in both the Universities have in many years reached unto. Amongst all the benefits that God hath blessed me withal, next the knowledge of Christ's true religion, I count this the greatest, that it pleased God to call me to be one poor minister in setting forward these excellent gifts of learning in this most excellent Prince; whose only example, if the rest of our nobility would follow, then might England be, for learning and wisdom in nobility, a spectacle to all the world beside. But see the mishap of men; the best examples have never such force to move to any goodness, as the bad, vain, light, and fond have to all illness."

We do not know to whom the allusion in the passage that follows points, unless it be to King Henry the Eighth.

"And one example, though out of the compass of learning, yet not out of the order of good manners, was notable in this court not fully twenty-four years ago; when all the acts of parliament, many good proclamations, divers strait commandments, sore punishments openly, special regard privately, could not do so much to take away one misorder, as the example of one big

one of this court did still to keep up the same: the memory whereof doth yet remain in a common proverb of Birching Lane.

"Take heed, therefore, ye great ones in the Court, yea though ye be the greatest of all, take heed what ye do, take heed how ye live, for as you great ones use to do, so all mean men love to do. You be indeed makers, or marrers, of all men's manners within the realm."

Ascham would have even the dress of the different classes of society to be regulated by law. "If," he says, "three or four great ones in court will needs outrage in apparel, in huge hose, in monstrous hats, in garish colours; let the prince proclaim, make laws, order, punish, command every gate in London daily to be watched; let all good men beside do everywhere what they can surely the misorder of apparel in mean men abroad shall never be amended, except the greatest in court will order and mend themselves first. I know some great and good ones in court were authors that honest citizens in London should watch at every gate to take misordered persons in apparel; I know that honest Londoners did so; and I saw (which I saw then, and report now with some grief) that some courtly men were offended with these good men of London. And hat which grieved me most of all, I saw the very same time, for all these good orders commanded from the court, and executed in London, I saw, I say, come out of London, even unto the presence of the prince, a great rabble of mean and light persons in apparel, for matter against law, for making against order, for fashion, namely hose, so without all order, as he thought himself most brave that durst do most in breaking order, and was most monstrous in misorder. And for all the

great commandments that came out of the court, yet this bold misorder was winked at, and borne with in the court. I thought it was not well, that some great ones of the court durst declare themselves offended with good men of London for doing their duty; and the good ones of the court would not show themselves offended with ill men of London for breaking good order."

Such passages as these are curious, as illustrations of ancient manners; and we have for that reason preserved them in our abstract, though having little or no bearing upon the business of the Schoolmaster, at least in the present day. The author goes on to contend that the great ought to set an example to the rest of the nation in other things, as well as in propriety of dress. For instance, "if but two or three noblemen in the court," he says, "would but begin to shoot, all young gentlemen, the whole court, all London, the whole realm, would straightway exercise shooting."

Returning from this digression, the author states the sum of what he has hitherto delivered to be," that from seven year old to seventeen, love is the best allurement to learning; from seventeen to seven-and-twenty, that wise men should carefully see the steps of youth surely staid by good order, in that most slippery time, and specially in the court;" and he then proceeds as follows:

"Sir Richard Sackville, that worthy gentleman of worthy memory, as I said in the beginning, in the Queen's privy chamber at Windsor, after he had talked with me for the right choice of good wit in a child for learning; and of the true difference betwixt quick and hard wits; of alluring young children by gentleness to love learning; and of the special care that was to be had to keep young men from licentious living; he was most

earnest with me to have me say my mind also what I thought concerning the fancy that many young gentlemen of England have to travel abroad, and namely to lead a long life in Italy. His request, both for his authority and good will toward me, was a sufficient commandment unto me to satisfy his pleasure with uttering plainly my opinion in that matter. Sir,' quoth I, ‘I take going thither, and living there, for a young gentleman, that doth not go under the keep and guard of such a man as both by wisdom can, and authority dare rule him, to be marvellous dangerous.'

“And why I said so then, I will declare at large now, which I said then privately, and write now openly; not because I do contemn either the knowledge of strange and divers tongues, and namely the Italian tongue, (which next the Greek and Latin tongue, I like and love above all other,) or else because I do despise the learning that is gotten, or the experience that is gathered in strange countries; or for any private malice that I bear to Italy; which country, and in it namely Rome, I have always specially honoured, because time was when Italy and Rome have been, to the great good of us that now live, the best breeders and bringers up of the worthiest men, not only for wise speaking, but also for well doing, in all civil affairs, that ever was in the world. But now that time is gone, and though the place remain, yet the old and present manners do differ as far as black and white, as virtue and vice.”

Ascham then launches into a long invective against the manners of Italy, and what he calls "the enchantments of Circe," by which Englishmen are in danger of being corrupted in that country. But we shall not fol low him through this declamation, which in general

has comparatively little interest for the modern reader. One or two personal reminiscences only, which it contains, may deserve to be extracted. "In our forefathers' time," says the author in one place, "when papistry as a standing pool covered and overflowed all England, few books were read in our tongue, saving certain books of chivalry, as they said, for pastime and pleasure." Among these he instances "La Mort d'Arthure," the character of which work he draws in no very flattering colours." Yet," he adds, "I know when God's Bible was banished the court, and La Mort d'Arthure' received into the prince's chamber." The prince here meant must, we suppose, be King Henry the Eighth. The following notice of the author's visit to Venice afterwards occurs:

"I was once in Italy myself, but, I thank God, my abode there was but nine days; and yet I saw in that little time, in one city, more liberty to sin than ever I heard tell of in our noble city of London in nine years. I saw it was there as free to sin, not only without all punishment, but also without any man's marking, as it is free in the city of London to choose, without all blame, whether a man lust to wear shoe or pantocle. And good cause why; for being unlike in truth of religion, they must needs be unlike in honesty of living. For blessed be Christ, in our city of London, commonly the commandments of God be more diligently taught, and the service of God more reverently used, and that daily in many private men's houses, than they be in Italy once a week in their common churches; where masking ceremonies to delight the eye, and vain sounds to please the ear, do quite thrust out of the churches all service of God in spirit and truth. Yea, the Lord